The Croatian Ombudswoman for Children, Helenca Pirnat-Dragicevic, has joined the ongoing European campaign for the protection of rights of children of imprisoned parents, and called for the implementation of the new recommendations made by the Council of Europe (CoE) aimed at safeguarding the rights and interests of those children.

According to estimates, there are more than two million children living separately from their imprisoned parents in the 47 countries which are members of the Council of Europe, including about a million in EU countries.

In 2016, there were 12,300 children in Croatia who at some point had one parent incarcerated. And around a third of all inmates serving time in Croatian prisons had underage children at the time.

“These children may be traumatised, stigmatised as children of criminals, they may experience anxiety, and the loss of parental care and means to live, which can all be detrimental to their well-being, personal development, and their lives,” the Ombudswoman’s warned.

The recommendations, issued by CoE’s Committee of Ministers, state that children of prisoners have the same rights as all other children, including the right to regularly see their parents, except in cases when this would be contrary to children’s best interest.

Maintaining child-parent relations can positively impact not only the child, but also the imprisoned parent, prison staff and environment, and also the preparation of prisoners for their release and later re-integration into society, the Council of Europe said.

A number of guidelines were proposed, for example, to avoid arresting parents in the presence of children, to allow children to visit their imprisoned parent within a week after their arrest, and to allow them regular visits afterwards. Other guidelines include letting parents serve time in prisons located as close as possible to the child’s home, and prison visits should take place in a children-friendly setting.

The importance of protecting children’s privacy in the media is also emphasised, as well as institutions in the prison system to regularly inform the public on the numbers of children with parents in prison, and the affects that such a situation can have on them.

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